The Dilemma of the Downstream: Between Survival Crisis and Ecological Crisis

• In Event: Global Concern, Local Solutions: Community, Development, and Eco-politics in East Asia

Abstract

Most societies in the age of globalization struggle with survival and ecological problems. The solution to the survival problem focused on searching for a better social institution before the industrial revolution. Then, with the help of science and technology, humans populations grew, at the ever increasing cost of harming the environment. The survival problem seems to be solved, but it has created several ancillary problems. First, equality and justice issues are not resolved, but are neglected or pushed aside to be dealt with in the future; secondly, the upstream exploits the down stream, and both exploit their environment, and at the same time, the upstream exploits the downstream environment indirectly by exploiting the downstream people themselves; therefore, ecological problems of the upstream are transferred downstream; thirdly, the worsening of the ecological problem at the downstream end is finally resulting in global ecological crisis, so the survival problem in the downstream becomes more severe; now all human beings face a survival crisis because of the impending collapse of the global ecology.
Within China, the eastern area is the upstream and the west downstream; around every city, the inner (downtown) district is the upstream and urban periphery areas are the downstream. To protect the environment seems to mean stopping development and leaving some people in poverty and starvation. I argue that this dilemma is not solvable within the social structure and ideology of industrial civilization. Humans must find a new approach to civilization: first, criticizing industrial civilization completely, and second, learning from tradition.

Author

• Tian Song, Beijing Normal University